Jim Meyering wrote: > Paul Eggert wrote: >> On 11/04/10 00:56, Jim Meyering wrote: >> >>> However, what about Eric's example? >>> >>> $ src/stat-p -c '_%-0 010.4:X_' k # yours >>> _234 _ >>> $ src/stat-j -c '_%-0 010.4:X_' k # mine >>> _0234 _ >> >> That's simply an issue of whether the value is considered to be signed >> or unsigned, and can be fixed by the patch at the end of this message. >> >> However, let me take a step back a minute. Do users really want all >> this functionality? Personally, what I'd like to see is a single >> format like this: >> >> %.3X >> >> that prints out the entire seconds since the Epoch, truncated >> to millseconds. That's simpler than what we require now: >> >> %X.%.3:X >> >> The changelogs suggest that we used to do things the simpler way, >> but changed on Oct. 21. I don't recall this being discussed: I > > It was due to portability concerns, since with coreutils-8.6, > %X, %Y, etc. expanded to floating point values, and that broke > backwards compatibility: > > http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gnu.coreutils.general/161/focus=366 > > However, enabling floating point output only when there is a ".PREC" > part of the format sounds like a fine compromise. > Sure, old scripts that used %.3X (expecting no ".") would break, > but I doubt any such uses exist, since that notation did nothing useful. > > A patch would be most welcome.
Hi Paul, Please let us know whether you are working on this.
